Nissan’s standardisation plans

NISSAN has revealed plans to standardise their hybrid and electric vehicles to reduce costs ­ and hopefully also prices.

According to Motor.es, the Japanese firm has come up with a way to reduce development and production costs across its hybrid and electric range. They recently unveiled prototypes of a new engineering approach with greater standardisation and modularity, namely 3­in­1 and 5­in­1, with the results set to be made public before 2026.

Nissan has a two­pronged electrification strategy. On the one hand, there are the 100 per cent electric cars such as Leaf or Ariya, and on the other are the series hybrids with petrol engines, although the traction is always electric, such as the Nissan e­Power, Qashqai and X­Trail.

Under the new system, the development of powertrain component packaging will take a new approach involving standardisation and modularisation of components common to both solutions.

Since e­Power hybrids have an electric traction motor, there is plenty of scope for standardisation of components, say Motor.es. In fact, there are three that are exactly the same in their function: electric traction motor, reduction gear (the gearbox) and the inverter.

But the most important industrial benefit is said to be the cost reduction. Based on what it used to cost to produce these core powertrain components, Nissan estimates that 30 per cent less will be spent by 2026, bringing e­Powers closer to price parity between e­Powers and today’s ‘dry­running’ vehicles by 2025.